Hasta La Ideas

Fish-scaled sculptures raise environmental awareness

Located in St. Ives in Cornwall, England, Muju World is an artist’s studio run by Mr. and Miss Muju that specializes in mixed media and toy creations. Their latest release is a team of “Ocean Guardians“, five sculptural pieces representing the five oceans: Arctic, Indian, Pacific, Atlantic and Southern. The scaled creatures are hand-cast in resin by Miss Muju and painted by hand in aqua gradients by Mr. Muju. Standing at a mere seven inches tall, the delightful figurines help to promote awareness of ocean issues, with £10 from each sale going to the Surfers for Cetaceans Charity.

“We aim to produce artworks that generate a positive vibe,” says Mr. Muju. “The concept of these sculptures as modern-day totems, protectors of nature and elemental forces seems to fit with our sense of creative purpose.” Both Mr. and Miss Muju are avid surfers and dedicated to the environment, the Ocean Guardians a follow-up to an earlier eco-conscious team of Forest Guardians.

The Muju Ocean Guardians are available from Muju World for £90.

Our interview with the artist about sand-blasted books, ethereal paintings and a transcendental point of view

Examining evolution through the dual lens of spirituality and science, Montreal-based book sculptor Guy Laramée creates miniature landscapes from antiquated paperbacks. Drawing upon over three decades of experience as an interdisciplinary artist (including a start as a music composer) and an education in anthropology, Laramée carves out an existentialist parallel between the erosion of geography and the ephemeral nature of the printed word.

Laramée also evokes notes of nostalgia and the passing of time with his paintings of clouds and fog. A self-professed anachronist, Laramée takes inspirational cues from the age of Romanticism and the transcendentalism of Zen, exploring “not only what we think, but that we think.” Laramée’s distinct, conceptual medium and thematic study of change has involved him in such contemplative projects as the “Otherworldly” exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design and an impromptu collaboration with WIRED UK.

We caught up with Laramée during his recent exhibition, “Attacher les roches aux nuages” or “Tying Rocks to Clouds”, at Expression: Centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinte in Quebec, to learn more about his process and philosophy.

What inspired the ideas for your book sculptures and what is the process that is involved in creating them?

The bookwork came in the alignment of three things: a casual discovery, my undertaking of an MA in anthropology and the building of La Grande Bibliothèque du Québec. The undertaking of this grand library fascinated me because at that time (2000) I thought that the myth of the encyclopedia—having all of humanity’s knowledge at the same place—was long dead. I was, myself, going back to school to make sense of 15 years of professional practice and was, once more, confronted with my love/hate relationship with words. Then came this accident, so to speak. I was working in a metal shop, having received a commission for a theater set. In a corner of the shop was a sandblaster cabinet. Suddenly, I had the stupid idea of putting a book in there. And that was it. Within seconds, the whole project unfolded.

Please tell us a bit about your collaboration with Wired UK and creation of the Black Tides project.

Tom Cheshire, one of the associate editors of WIRED, wrote me one day, saying that he loved my work and inquiring about my future projects. Off the top of my head and half jokingly, I told him that I had the idea of doing a piece with a pile of their magazines (that was not true). He picked up on the idea and suddenly, a pile of magazines was being shipped to my studio. I had had a lot of offers for commissions—all involving my work with books—and I refused them all because they all made me so sad. People were trying to use my work to fit their agendas but the collaboration with WIRED truly inspired me because it fit perfectly with a project I had on my bench for a while, and for which I had found no outlet. The Great Black Tides project is the continuation of The Great Wall project. It gives flesh to a short story written in the mode of an archeology of the future.

The first piece that came out of this project is WIRELAND. It is both ironic and beyond irony. It is ironic that a high-tech magazine would include such a low-tech work in their pages—and foremost a type of work that looks so critically at the ideologies of progress. And it is beyond irony even, because the piece is beautiful. It is beautiful for mysterious reasons but I like to think that the way Tom Cheshire trusted me was a big factor in the success of the enterprise. So if there is a message in all this, I would like to think that it is this: never stop relating to people who defend worldviews, which seem to contradict yours. There is a common factor beyond all points of view.

In addition to your sculptures, you also paint. Please tell us a bit about your painting process and what inspires your fog series.

The 19th century painter and emblematic figure of Romanticism, Caspar David Friedrich, said, “The eye and fantasy feel more attracted by nebulous distance than by that which is close and distinct in front of us.” That sums it up all very nicely. What is blurred and foggy attracts your eye because you want to know what is behind that veil. It is a dynamic prop to set you in motion.

Your work frequently explores themes of the ephemeral, surreal and nostalgic. What draws you to these themes and influences them?

The Great Nostalgia is my main resource. It is not nostalgia about a lost golden age (which never existed). It is the nostalgia, here and now, of the missing half. We live between two contradictory and simultaneous worldviews: the participant and the observer. I work along the thesis that all of humanity’s joy and sorrow come out of this basic schism, something most of the great religions (Buddhism, Sufism, etc.) evoke abundantly.

My work is existential. It may depict landscapes that inspire serenity, but this is the serenity that you arrive at after traversing life crisis. You can paint a flower as a hobby, but you can also paint a flower as you come back from war. The same flower, apparently, but not really the same.

Could you please share your thoughts on the theme of the Guan Yin project and how it manifested in the exhibited pieces?

Originally the project was a commission for a local biennale here in Quebec, an event that celebrates linen. The theme of that biennale was “Touch”. I started with used rags, the ones that are used by mechanics and that are called “wipers”. I started by sowing them together without really knowing what I was doing. I was attracted to the different shades of these rags. They are all of a different grey, due to the numerous exposures to grease and the subsequent washings but meanwhile, my mother died. I was with her when she gave her last breath. Needless to say, that gave the project a totally different color.

So, I decided that this project would help me pass through the mourning of this loss. I decided against all reason—you don’t do that in contemporary art— that I would carve a statue of Guan Yin, the Chinese name for the Bodhisattva of compassion in Buddhist lore. It took me four months. I had never carved a statue in wood. Finally, the statue came out of a syncretic version of the original. It is still faithful to one of the avatars of these icons but there is a bit of the Virgin Mary in there. Then, I built an altar over the statue and put the altar on this 16×16 feet tablecloth made of 500 used rags. The piece was first shown in an historic Catholic church which was almost a statement about the possibility of an inter-faith dialogue—even if that was far from my concern at the time when I put it up there. To me, these rags, with the hands of these women over them, became the metaphor of our human condition. As a Japanese proverb says, “The best words are the ones you did not say.”

“Attacher les roches aux nuages” will run through 12 August 2012 at the Centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinte.

Centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinte

495, Avenue Saint-Simon

Saint-Hyacinthe (Quebec), J2S 5C3

Shark teeth and pheasant feathers in work by a UK artist

50-million-year-old shark teeth and thousands of turkey, pheasant and coque feathers are just a few of the materials comprising the work of UK artist Louise Greenfield. “I’ve always been into making and designing things. Even when I was a little girl I was creating little outfits and packaging boxes. I loved the construction, pattern and color elements equally and was occupied for hours as a child,” laughs Greenfied in her North London studio. “I’d drive my maths teachers crazy day-dreaming about things I could make!”

This love affair with construction and design led London-born Greenfield to complete a 1st Class BA (Hons.) in Applied Art before being offered a chance to work with the jewelry team at Vivienne Westwood. “I’d always admired the incredible theatrical, flamboyant nature of her work,” says Greenfield. During her time there she felt fortunate to work with Wendy Ramshaw, CBE, the queen of British jewelry design. Inspired by what she calls the “execution and finish on her work which is always so incredibly precise and intricate,” Greenfield soaked up everything she could learn about materials—”be it precious metals, jewels, plastics, leather and fabrics”—and used the results to create large-scale installations as well as jewelry and art.

In 2010, Greenfield launched her own range, Targets—intricate and highly detailed wall art utilizing hundreds of pheasant, coque, turkey feathers—at London’s Origin and 100% Design festivals. The positive feedback led to global editorial coverage and the opportunity to collaborate with some of the UK’s top interior designers.

The following year, while visiting New York, Greenfield stumbled upon a 50-million-year-old shark’s tooth, an encounter that eventually led to her latest animal-inspired collection, Dancing Teeth. “I found the my first tooth at an amazing shop called Evolution, an artist’s treasure trove full of preserved butterflies, beetles, snake skeletons and spiders. I found it fascinating to imagine the history behind these items that were so old. The tooth inspired this alternative fairy-tale narrative; I simply wanted to make playful, bright, fresh objects with a static energy,” she says.

Attention to detail and an obsession with structure are at the core of everything Greenfield creates, resulting in breathtaking quality. For Targets and Flight, Greenfield first decides on colors and types of feather before measuring and drawing out the design onto blank canvas. Next, each feather is positioned onto steel pins and Greenfield drills into the board to affix them. “I guess the hardest part is making sure the size, color and patternation on the feathers works with the structural shape,” she explains. “When I’m producing a new piece, it’s very much about working with the design as the shape evolves so timescales vary hugely. Yes, it can be frustrating but also quite therapeutic too!” In Dancing Teeth—a collection Greenfield is currently evolving—each tooth is individually cast before being carefully built into the sculpture.

Despite the effort involved, Greenfield is overwhelmingly positive about her future. “When you’re working for yourself, the possibilities are endless and I think ultimately you get out what you put in. It’s exciting not knowing what’s coming next or what the next commission will involve. There’s nothing better than doing something you love and I’m excited to be indulging in my own creativity.”

Construction of the controversial 115 metre-high sculpture that artist Anish Kapoor and structural engineer Cecil Balmond designed for the London 2012 Olympic park is now complete.

Visitors will enter a central elevator to ascend the steel tower, named the ArcelorMittal Orbit, arriving at an observation deck with a panoramic view of the city. To exit, they will be encouraged to climb down a staircase of 455 steps that spirals around the tower’s exterior.

Around 560 metres of red tubular steel form the structure and 250 coloured spotlights illuminate it at night. Internal fit-out will begin later this month and the attraction will open to the public before the games begin in July.

The project suffered a huge backlash when the initial plans were revealed back in 2010. See the comments from Dezeen readers here.

See also: our earlier stories about completed Olympic venues the aquatics centre, the velodrome and the main stadium, and see all our stories about the London 2012 Olympics here.

Photography is by ArcelorMittal.

Here’s some more information from the London Mayor’s Office:

ArcelorMittal Orbit unveiled to the world

Main construction of the London 2012 landmark is declared complete.

ArcelorMittal, tier two sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the world’s leading steel company, will today offer a preview of the completed ArcelorMittal Orbit – the 114.5 metre sculpture designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond which will stand at the heart of the Olympic Park.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit is being handed over to the London Legacy Development Corporation later this month, so that Balfour Beatty Workplace can complete the fit-out ahead of the London 2012 Games where it will be a ticketed visitor attraction.

The press event will be attended by the team behind the sculpture, including Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, Lakshmi N. Mittal, Chairman and CEO, ArcelorMittal, and Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, alongside the architects, engineers and builders who have helped bring the project to reality. For the first time, attendees to the unveiling will be able to travel up to the viewing platform and enjoy a panoramic view of up to 20 miles, encompassing the entire Olympic Park and London’s skyline beyond. At 114.5m, the ArcelorMittal Orbit is the UK’s tallest sculpture and stands 22 metres taller than New York City’s Statue of Liberty.

“It gives me great pride to see the ArcelorMittal Orbit standing not only as a completed work of public art but as a physical symbol of the Olympic spirit,” comments Lakshmi N. Mittal, Chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal. “It makes me very proud that ArcelorMittal plants from across the world contributed to this showcase of the strength and versatility of steel,” he adds.

Boris Johnson: “This 114.5metre-high attraction to trump rivals the world over is a calling card for investment in east London. It is a symbol of prosperity and growth, backed by one of the world’s most astute business leaders, which delivers the strongest message that this part of London is open for business after decades of neglect.

“In addition to the £11billion plus investment that has taken place around the Olympics over the last four years, the ArcelorMittal Orbit will draw visitors to newly regenerated swathes of east London in perpetuity and has changed our skyline and aspirations forever. The development of this area, creating new jobs, homes, schools, and thriving communities beyond the Olympics, is one of the most important regeneration priorities as we lay the ground now to meet the needs of the next 25 years.”

Anish Kapoor: “I am absolutely delighted that construction is now complete and I would like to thank the project team for making this possible and for their work on what is technically a very challenging project. I am looking forward to the Olympics when visitors to the Park will be able to go up the ArcelorMittal Orbit for the first time and I am delighted that members of the public will be able to interact with the work in this way.”

Cecil Balmond: “Anish and I were conscious from the beginning that the ArcelorMittal Orbit would be a lasting legacy to the city and so we wanted to stretch the language of the icon as far we could go. The Orbit is a hybrid, a network of art and structure, and its dynamic is the non-linear. You read into it multiple narratives in space.”

One of the world’s leading artists, Turner Prize winning Anish Kapoor studied in London, where he is now based. He is well known for his use of rich pigment and imposing, yet popular works, such as Marsyas, which filled the Tate’s Turbine Hall as part of the Unilever Series, Cloud Gate in Chicago’s Millennium Park and his recent record breaking show at the Royal Academy, the most successful exhibition ever presented by a contemporary artist in London.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit was designed by Anish Kapoor and one of the world’s leading structural designers, Cecil Balmond, who trained and lives in London, and is known for his innovative work on some of the greatest contemporary buildings in the world, such as the CCTV building in Beijing, as well as many Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commissions.

Construction of the ArcelorMittal Orbit took 18 months and required 560 metres of tubular red steel to form the sculpture’s lattice superstructure. The result is a bold statement of public art that is both permanent and sustainable, with close to 60 per cent of the 2,000 tonnes of steel used in the sculpture being drawn from recycled sources, underlining steel’s status as the world’s most recyclable material. Steel was chosen for the ArcelorMittal Orbit because of its unique properties including strength, modular structure and advantages of weight and speed of construction.

Sitting between the Stadium and the Aquatics Centre, the ArcelorMittal Orbit will be a beacon of the Olympic Park during the Games and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as the area will be known after the Games.

Visitors will be able to take a trip to the top of the structure in a lift and down too if they wish, although they will be encouraged to walk down the spiral staircase, which has 455 steps and has been designed to enable the guests to experience the feeling that they are orbiting around the structure as they descend it.

After the Olympic and Paralympic Games and following a period of transformation, the Legacy Corporation will run the ArcelorMittal Orbit as a visitor attraction with ticketed viewing from the observation decks and a compelling venue for private functions. It will be able to accommodate around 5,000 visitors a day with potential to attract around one million people during its first year of operation. It will have the capacity to accommodate between 400 – 600 visitors per hour, including full wheelchair access.

Last month, the Legacy Corporation announced that the ArcelorMittal Orbit will light up East London after 250 colour spot lights were added to the sculpture. Each can be individually controlled to produce a stunning digital combination of static and animated effects including a 15 minute moving light show every evening after the Games.

Andrew Altman, Chief Executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation, said: “The ArcelorMittal Orbit will become one of London’s most spectacular visitor attractions and a stunning backdrop to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. “Not only will it offer differing views by day and night, but it will light up the East London skyline to become a beacon of the incredible transformation of this part of East London.”

The Legacy Corporation, which will lease the ArcelorMittal Orbit to LOCOG during the Games, has said that 85% of the 50 jobs created in the venue after the Games will go to local people.

As a tier two sponsor of London 2012, ArcelorMittal has committed to funding up to £19.6 million of the £22.7 million cost of the ArcelorMittal Orbit, with the outstanding £3.1 million provided by the London Development Agency. It has been estimated that the resulting visitor attraction will generate up to £10 million of revenue per annum and create up to 50 new jobs following the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Light play and voyeurism in Dan Graham’s latest collection of glass sculptures

The new show by Dan Graham at the Lisson Gallery in London is at once predictable and unexpected. Those who have known and loved the interactive experience of Graham’s Pavilions for the last several decades will recognize his stamp, yet somehow—for those familiar or not with his work—Graham manages to create surprise and delight every time.

The 70-year-old artist continues to develop his series of structural meditations on the perception of space, which he began in the 1980s. The Lisson Gallery exhibition combines two new large pavilions with three pavilion scale models being built, and accompanying the show is a catalog of not-yet-realized pavilion drawings by the perpetually ambitious artist.

As studies on the concepts of inside and outside, it’s appropriate that Lisson has placed one large pavilion inside and one in their sculpture yard outside. The light-filled white space of the gallery suits the perfectly engineered minimalism of Graham’s work, which combines references to the slickness of modern architecture with the entrancing effect of a hall of mirrors.

However, Graham’s is best experienced outdoors where the concave and convex semi-reflective surfaces have so much more to play with, from sky and clouds to trees, buildings and people. The superbly detailed structures are both sculptures to admire and, at the same time, blank canvases to reflect their surroundings. Inside an empty white space, the reflections remain monochrome and calm. Outside, the glass canvas is splashed with busy, eclectic and multi-colored reflections that change rapidly and dramatically.

While many experience the Pavilions as playful spaces, it’s interesting to see the Lisson Gallery referencing more sinister themes such as voyeurism and surveillance. As they explain, it can indeed be disconcerting to be enveloped by a Dan Graham installation. According to the gallery’s description of the exhibition, “Viewers are involved in the voyeuristic act of seeing oneself reflected, while at the same time watching others. Whilst giving people a sense of themselves in space it can also result in loss of self as the viewer is momentarily unable to determine the difference between the physical reality and the reflection.”

Pavilions is on display at the Lisson Gallery through 28 April 2012.

Lisson Gallery

29 Bell Street

London, NW1

All photos by Leonora Oppenheim